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Archive for the ‘Stand In The Truth’ Category

Deuteronomy 32:4 – He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

The postmodernists have this famous philosophical question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, did it really fall? The postmodern answer to this question is “No, because there is no such thing as truth or reality, only perception.” This frees the postmodernists to do whatever they choose to promote a predetermined viewpoint. The goal is to avoid actual honest analysis, where one dispassionately weighs supporting and competing views and facts to decide things based on merit. Instead, one is trained how to omit, distort, or portray out of context all facts and views until the only viable option appears to be the one. The postmodernist does not seek to win debates, but rather to ensure that no debate exists. The height of postmodernism, of course, is to make a person THINK that an actual contest is going on when there really is not. The person who participates in a discussion with a postmodernist will find himself having to choose between bad options (heads I win, tails you lose) because that is all a postmodernist will ever offer. So, the answer to the question of whether the tree has fallen or not is simply: “If your pre – existing agenda is supported by the tree’s falling, then it did. If the tree’s falling harms your pre – existing agenda, then not only did the tree not fall, but it never existed in the first place.”

Of course, this is something straight from Satan, and is frequently used in defense of evil. People who have rejected God are in positions of influence in virtually every institution (media, education, government, entertainment, industry, religion) and they all use these tactics to justify and get away with things that are incontrovertibly evil. And because they are cut from the same cloth with the same agenda – to take God out of every facet of human life – they support each other and make sure that no one is ever held accountable. This is not to say that the truth never gets out, for they know that they cannot suppress the truth entirely. Instead, the truth gets “managed”; introduced, dealt with, and dismissed in a fashion where except to the very elect it actually APPEARS part of the lie. The worst part is that instead of standing against these people with principled righteousness and winning though they appear to lose, Christians have adopted these Satanic tactics. They do so to win arguments and thereby remain relevant and influential in the public sphere, but in reality they have lost. When it comes to everyone but Christians who are not elect, Satan is content to shield them from the truth; to win the argument. But Satan knows that he cannot shield elect Christians from the truth, so in dealing with them, he doesn’t care about winning the argument. Instead, his goal is to get Christians to give up righteousness. One Christian who sacrifices righteousness causes more harm than 1000 unbelievers who swallow a lie. Why? Because even if an unbeliever knows the truth, because he is not covered in the Blood of Christ and lacks guidance in the Holy Spirit, he will not be effective in using that truth to accomplish anything good, especially when it relates to the spirit realm. As a matter of fact, an unbeliever can take the truth and use it to do more harm than he would have done with a lie. Then why does Satan feed them lies? Because if an unbeliever has a concept of truth, once he becomes saved he will be immediately empowered to use it. But the unbeliever who is filled with lies and then becomes saved FIRST has to rid his flesh of all the lies, and THEN become filled with the truth. But a Christian who knows the truth but puts on unrighteousness for the sake of temporary gain in the natural realm forfeits the very thing that he needs to put that truth into action in the spirit realm, which IS righteousness.

This happens when Christians get caught up into what they SEE in the natural realm, and therefore fight in the natural realm with the same natural, corrupt methods that the enemy uses. It is not so much that the enemy will always be better in the natural realm because it is his turf, he is more experienced at it, and where there are always limits to what a Christian will stoop to the enemy will break every rule and cross every boundary. While those things are true, even if it were possible to beat the devil at his own game, the devil is more than willing to lose a battle to win a war, and he does that by getting you to forfeit the spiritual battle and to instead fight in the flesh. So Christians need to forget about what they SEE and instead put their focus on what they cannot see. What they see in the natural realm is actually a manifestation of the evil that Satan is working in the spirit realm. For instance, a postmodernist will have spirits of lying, control, manipulation, etc. working through him. Take on his methods, and those same spirits will work through you, too! Do not think that you can lie, control, or manipulate for Jesus Christ! No, you must cling to righteousness and fight this battle as it really is and where you have the power through the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost: a spiritual one. That is when you must put on the whole armour of God, especially the breastplate of righteousness and (as Bibleman puts it) the waistbelt of truth. If you do that, then rather having to worry about battling the devices of a determined liar with your own machinations, you can just allow the Holy Spirit to speak through you. This is not to say that you will win every verbal joust in the natural realm. Yes, Jesus Christ did, for instance, shut up those who criticized Him for healing on the Sabbath, who brought before Him the adulterous woman to be stoned, who asked if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, and accused Him of casting out devils with the power of devils. But when Christ was tried by sinners (Herod, Pilate, and the councils) before His execution, He did not say much of anything at all; only the minimum that was required. Why? Because overcoming them with words – which He could have done – would have A) caused Him not to fulfill the prophecies concerning His trial and B) perhaps even caused Him not to go to the cross. So, where Christ won BOTH natural and spiritual battles in other cases, in this one He had to lose the natural battle in order to win the spiritual one for the Father and for you and I.

You may be tempted to decide that it is better to avoid situations where you cannot win in order to prevent yourself from losing natural battles. The source of that temptation is pride. If you love God more than you love your appearances to the world, then you would count it as gain to suffer humiliation at the hands of the world in order to reject and overcome the world. Further, the liars are evil, and how can evil be overcome if it is not withstood by the righteous? Though those who willingly love lies may never accept the truth and will glory in their appearing to mow you down, those who seek the truth will hear the truth in your words and marvel at what you were willing to endure to hold to and represent it. In that instance, it matters not so much that you appear foolish in the eyes of those who have condemned themselves by their own reprobate hearts anyway, but that people who may still choose righteousness can see someone representing righteousness in a sea of evil and live to tell about it. Or better yet, see one die for righteousness so that they can see that righteousness is worth dying for: that it is better to die righteous than to live a lie. You must be willing to decrease so that God can increase. At your expense? God forbid! Rather, God would exalt you in the spirit for allowing yourself to be debased by the evil world for His Name’s Sake. A lot of people think that by taking on the dishonest tactics of the enemy that they succeed in making God look better in the natural, when the truth is that what God cares about is His Truth being represented in the spiritual. And to be honest, it does not make God look better in the natural anyway. It just makes it appear that you can be just as big a sinner as the next guy and call yourself a Christian. In doing so, you are doing God and the Body of Christ no favors, but instead condemning yourself and setting a bad example for others. It is only your pride, your personal desire not to look bad in your own eyes and in the eyes of men and your unwillingness to endure rejection and tribulation that would cause you to settle and compromise in such a fashion, to be mindful of the lesser glory of this world rather than keeping your sight set on the incomparably greater glory to come.

Remember that you come not in your own name, but in the Name of God. You represent not yourself, but the Holy Spirit that is within you. God is greater than not only he that is in the world, but He is greater than you also! The smaller you make yourself, the greater you make God. And since God is with you and in you, you benefit. Though you become small, you become greater because the God that you are in is greater. So, you lose an inch in yourself to gain a foot in God. But if you choose the flesh route, for the appearances of making yourself greater, you actually make yourself smaller AND the portion of God that is real and living to you smaller. Choose decrease and you gain double, choose false increase and you lose double. You have to realize that you are not serving God to make yourself look and feel better. The only way that a true servant of God makes himself look and feel better is by putting on Christ, so that he will rejoice in God winning in the spirit regardless of what happens in the flesh. It is really no different from a father or mother watching a son or daughter in a competition. If you truly love your child, then seeing your child win a competition would give you more joy than your winning one yourself.Sadly, some parents are so self – absorbed that this is not the case: they actually envy their kids and hamper their success in order to keep their kids from outshining them in their eyes and in the eyes of the world. Well, if you truly love God, then seeing God get the glory will give you more joy than any glory that you receive. If nothing else, it is common sense. After all, if you get the glory, what are you going to do with it? Can you cause it to rain upon the dry places? Can you go out before your people in war and give them victory? What does YOU getting the glory benefit anyone, yourself included? It does not! But giving GOD, the one who CAN and DOES cause all things to work for the good of all who love Him and are called according to HIS purpose, gets the glory, then He CAN and WILL use that glory to bless His people (you included) and to deliver the weak and innocent; to gather all that is His unto Himself. That should be your only goal, and that should be why you should be willing to take on the deceivers, mockers, snarlers, accusers, and liars no matter how they appear to tear you to shreds and when no one else is willing to stand up and take the abuse: because you know that with every swing and blow that rips your natural into shreds gives God glory that He will use to bless someone else in the supernatural.

So, the next time that you are asked whether the tree that fell without anyone being around to see it fell at all, then do not allow yourself to be drawn into some vain conversation that glorifies the pretense of great human intellect possessed by the participants. And do not simply stand up and pound your fist and say “It fell! It fell because that is THE TRUTH!” Remember: your accusers have no interest in truth. So, instead express the truth in a different way, one designed to let these Philistines know EXACTLY who you are and what you represent. Say: “Whether the tree fell or not God was still glorified!” Not only is that the very truth that THE WORLD must hear, it is the same truth that CHRISTIANS must never forget, and also never forget to praise God for and to be glad that we are on the Lord’s side, the side that not WILL WIN but HAS ALREADY WON!

Prayer:

Father God, in the Name of Jesus Christ, may your children always stand bold in faith for Your Truth. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are worldliness and pride. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!